Pokemon Red / Blue Tool Assisted Speedrun History Explained

Across their 23 year history, Red and Blue have some very interesting speedrun histories, and none more so than the TAS history. Although only a few runs have been created, when a new entry is logged the route has changed drastically, which is what we're looking at today.
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Players Featured:
Aruka's TAS
www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm2032...
TiKevin83
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MrWint
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CalebHart42
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/ @calebhart42

[@stardmg]

"we manipulate his Tackle to miss" Bro, imagine being Brock and you lose to this new kid because he can literally control fate

[@emanuelperez3595]

Player: ima use bubble so your geodude misses his tackle Brock: wat Geodude: wat Squirtle: yup idk how but he does it. ( speaking with a thick male ugandan voice) Player: next ill 1 shot your onix and my nidoran will be like lvl 99 but not learn anything as well. Everyone in the gym even the player: wat

[@FishBola1991]

And he does it with random twitching and walking in weirdly specific patterns. “I turned right while pushing this rock, there will be no more encounters” “I had to spin around otherwise my next catch won’t have the right stats.”

[@akiradkcn]

Thats just yugioh lol

[@rogerabbott8868]

@@FishBola1991 Kid controlling fate with the power of untreated mental illness. I bet that Pikachu's nickname is Donnie Darko.

[@jessmoser9406]

Lmfaaaaaaooo "It was always going to end like this."

[@ShawFujikawa]

“So here’s a famous analogy involving a bus…” Me, a frequent watcher of SMB speedruns: Ah shit, here we go again…

[@gunstar420]

I have never heard of frame rules before, do you know a good analogy to help me understand it better? Keep in mind I'm deathly afraid of busses

[@goldenwarrior1186]

@@gunstar420 Imagine a certain 4-wheeled vehicle...

[@stapler942]

Assume a spherical cow in a vacuum...

[@adventureoflinkmk2]

@@gunstar420 don't worry, if you ever get on one of my buses I'll give you an easier time

[@burntgrass8066]

Or the definition of a TAS

[@nj8833]

23:08 “… the odds of getting this fight normally are 1 in 15 trillion, for a total time save of 2 seconds.” This sentence right here beautifully sums up TAS’ing in general lmao

[@Matyas_Ceo_Of_Matyas]

Sounds sad and pathetic

[@nj8833]

@@Matyas_Ceo_Of_Matyas go be neurotic somewhere else

[@skyrimaster1885]

@@Matyas_Ceo_Of_Matyas listen. You don't have to describe yourself okay?

[@xanevans3223]

This is what gives me confidence we don't live in a simulation. People would have figured how to TAS their lives at this point

[@vihdzp]

I love how this is exactly half as likely as that one Dream speedrun lol

[@FutureJacket]

23:15 "The odds of getting this fight normally are one in fifteen trillion for a total time save of two seconds." Wow

[@merchantziro4285]

When a meme run ends up being better than the original fully optimized route, you know you're doing something right.

[@JarvisBaileyVA]

Man this TAS guy really is the king of speedruns. He must have frame perfect reaction times.

[@turnkey_hole]

TAS is the Hatsune Miku of speedrunning.

[@SpanielTower]

When you were talking about the “first choice” I forgot that in the gen 1 games you can only play as a Male protagonist so my brain made “Are you a boy or a girl?” “Squirtle”

[@JazzyWaffles]

Honestly valid. Squirtle is very gender

[@plushytv5295]

“Ok, quit the jokes, what gender are you REALLY?” “First Rival Battle.”

[@ILiekFishes]

@NS 317 you really think it would've mattered in the slightest? why the restriction on version? what's the point of asking this? there's literally no way to draw a single conclusion about your question without talking out of your ass

[@awowogeithemonkeyking3704]

@NS 317 L

[@nutelllla_]

"squirtle" me too

[@kevingudelj8616]

When we were kids, all of the kiddo with a pokemon game had a specific combination that "make it more reliable" for some stuff. Maching buttons in a specific way with a specific timing to throw a ball and make the mon catch at 100%, waiting a specific moment and combo mach ur buttons to get more crit. Im glad to see we were pionners in facts

[@lengmoua6861]

Up A on throw, down A+B once ball opens

[@Gizbo1328]

@@lengmoua6861 I was a hold up and mash A guy myself, 90% catch rate, swear on me mum

[@WillowChord]

rock on the A and B buttons as well as the left and down buttons. Works 100% of the times it doesn't fail

[@tamarinds]

damn were cool

[@seldom_bucket]

Hold b and down the second the pokeball closes...never seemed to make a difference but probably couldn't stop myself doing it if I replayed them.

[@michaeloconnell3325]

Me, when the badge boost glitch gets mentioned: *happy JRose11 noises*

[@firebyrd7933]

I didn't hear him mention the badge boost glitch. I heard him mention badge boosts which were intended in the games but nothing about the glitch.

[@undergroundmonorail]

@@firebyrd7933 32:38

[@JamesBong3333]

This is a amazing concept man, tas breakdowns/explanations have always been interesting, but a comparison/progression is a fresh perspective on the subject.. Well done man

[@iamthepkmmaster]

You're right, and this is quite an untapped area. Speedrun progressions are out there, but not really for the TAS side.

[@nicholasschmidt2864]

I'm sad the meme run where Metronome Clefable would use the strongest possible moves in FR/LG wasn't a legitimate strat. Throwing out convenient Hydro Pumps, Blizzards, and Crunches, and critting most of the hits. You don't get Metronome until pretty late in the run and have to constantly buffer attacks to ensure the right move came out, so I guess it made more sense just to use Gen 1 Tauros and Stomp your way to victory.

[@ChadAF_YT]

TAS is my favorite speedrunner. He is literally the best at every game!!!

[@imaybedtt]

"Here's a famous analogy of a bus" -Every speedrun youtuber ever nice vid

[@pappy2690]

"One in 15 trillion to save 2 seconds" What a world

[@SendFoodz]

see what can happen when you think outside the box. that meme run gave a gust of revitalized spirit!

[@shady8045]

kinda sucks that the clefable thing didnt end up panning out in the end though

[@PokeMaster22222]

12:56 That's slightly incorrect - critical hits ignore the opponent's positive defensive stat changes in every generation, along with the user's negative offensive stat changes, BUT exclusive to Gen I crits also ignore the opponent's negative defensive stat changes and the user's positive stat changes. In other words, future games would allow crits to stack on top of the user's Swords Dance and the foe having been hit with Screech. RBGY, on the other hand, made crits ignore EVERYTHING - which meant that a crit (which dealt 2x damage before the 3DS changed it) would deal less damage than two Amnesias (3x damage).

[@nicocchi]

Yeah was gonna comment that. Gen 1 Crits could strangely be detrimental due to that. But this is also the same generation where Focus Energy actually sabotages your critrate lol

[@PokeMaster22222]

@@nicocchi Focus Energy does decrease crit rate, but _that_ bug was fixed in Stadium before being ported over for GSC.

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@nicocchi interesting enough, inspecting the disassembly suggests that the actual cause of the issue is that the game calculates your crit rate as if you used focus energy if you _haven't_ used focus energy. it's usually said that focus energy quarters your crit rate in gen 1, but the code only _halves_ it - yet it still ends up quartering it overall, because the code instead _doubles_ your crit rate if you _haven't_ used focus energy. while it's possible that they just used the wrong operator in both cases, i can't help but find it striking that the code would actually work perfectly fine as-is ... if the check for focus energy was reversed, anyway especially given how high the crit rate is in gen 1. alakazam having a 23.4% chance to crit just for existing makes significantly less sense than it having 5.9% if it hasn't swallowed a dire hit, after all

[@JazzyWaffles]

I'm VERY dumb, I had no idea crits did this

[@plushytv5295]

@@JazzyWaffles well another gimmick of Gen 1 Crits we’re that they were also based on the Pokémon’s Speed Stat, not just random chance. So Pokémon like Persian could crit a lot thanks to high speed and moves like Slash. Edit: oh, it was brought up in the vid, lol.

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

Man that is wild that such a shakeup happened. It is also cool that it lets a team be used. I wonder if some version of more Pokémon can be used as donation incentives in RTA at least, even if it is a little slower.

[@XavierTheNeonTiger]

4:29 "..this is handy for the item menu X Specially." You absolute monster.

[@ronbrokaw2779]

Pretty sure Nidoking can learn Ice Beam as well. He's a great versatile tank for first gen, one of my original favorites.

[@ObservationofLimits]

Yea probably bubblebeam was taken because 20pp vs 10 for icebeam

[@sagacious03]

Eager to hear about the Gold & Silver TAS Routes! I had heard about most of the stuff in this video, & it's neat to know that in TAS, the Nidokingdom has been overthrown. Anyway, excellent video! Thanks a bunch for uploading!

[@wombatpandaa9774]

It's important to remember that this was the case for the first Pokémon game because they were so limited by their hardware. They had to pack this entire game onto just a few hundred kilobytes, less than a single floppy disk worth of data. I'd recommend anyone with a modicum of experience or interest to look at the reverse engineered roms of red and blue. It's fascinating to see how, when it comes down to it, these games were basically just sophisticated spreadsheets calling the right information at the right time. They didn't have room for complex RNG equations because those alone would have been too big for the game. So they brilliantly used something pseudorandom - the player's inputs. Pokémon games after this don't suffer the same problem because Game Freak devs got better at programming, and pretty quickly were able to upgrade to larger data ceilings. So don't expect this to be possible in newer Pokémon games. I doubt any of them past Crystal (at the latest) used these sort of workaround tactics anymore.

[@Maddin1313]

When I played Pokemon Yellow as a little kid, I would always catch a Nidoran. I just had the feeling it was very strong, turns out the feeling was right. :D

[@detectivebloor4011]

Lol I swear I remember doing the instant text glitch as a kid when R/B came out. I remember it taking me a while to realize it, then just thinking “well that’s weird”

[@Peelster1]

Seems like the next thing that would save time is to route the current route into the Japanese version of the game as there is less Japanese text.

[@cyanideytandcuriousseadogg4160]

lol.

[@Blacksmith52]

It would mess up the timing, unless they can save in exact multiple of the frames per section

[@bantyone5299]

This is a fantastic video for the non glitch speed run. Goes into the right amount of detail but keeps things moving. Great job

[@iannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn]

Why is this so fascinating lmao its like hitting my nostalgia and effeciency nerd all at the same time.

[@Jabadamazo]

Pokemon speedrunners are a special type of psychotic with all the RNG they have to slog through.

[@ritwikism]

He used the Mario framerule explanation boisss

[@jaredsmith4734]

I can't believe how much depth there is in finding more time saves.

[@SaltpeterTaffy]

I could see that Hiker fight being animated by Terminal Montage.

[@revenevan11]

Lol, that "like and subscribe" plug at the end was very clever, ngl! 😅🤣

[@endymallorn]

I wish you were wrong that the YT algo is as much RNG as anything else. This was great. Thank you.

[@jacobpierce7283]

Great explanation, very clear. Have to appreciate the level of work and detail put in to these videos. Keep it up!

[@user-me8qe2gt3f]

Funny, I don't like both pokemons and speedruns, yet here I am, watching it all with great interest 😅 The way you and some other channels explain it all is very cool!

[@zacharyjeffares8158]

I wonder how dumbfounded bowser would be if Mario jumped through one of his hammers after he threw a dozen at him whilst spitting fire.

[@skynet0912]

It would be fun to see a TAS result for doing a run with every single pokemon in the game, if it was allowed to hack it in as a starter! Which pokemon is the fastest? Which is the slowest? Are some pokemon literally impossible? Which pokemon sees the greatest improvements in the standings by a single evolution?

[@caseyleenb]

ive wanted to do this, but holy shit the amount of work required

[@youtubeneedstochange4414]

There are a couple Pokemon who are literally impossible because of Ghost types, like Magikarp or Metapod. (Struggle's a Normal type move in Gen 1.)

[@bradleywalker8642]

Go watch JRose11 channel. He did solo runs of almost all the Gen1 Pokemon with them hacked in as starters, but then doesnt use any glitches, or any items during battles.

[@skynet0912]

@@bradleywalker8642 Believe me, i've watched every single one of his solo runs, but what i'm talking about is the mathematicaly best possible glitchless scenario for every single pokemon in the game. JRose still has the human element of his own patience and limited time to find solutions. I know it would take literally thousands of hours to do, so it's not realistic to actually do it, but it is the ultimate dream for me with runs like this, just to see if we can find a pokemons hard limit...

[@jonny7940]

fascinating vid! amazing how far we can push a 90s game

[@SendFoodz]

metronome fissure baby, dont give up on clefable!

[@KubesVoxel]

"STAB, or Same Type Attack Bonus" Speedrunners are trying to get the lowest time in sentences as well, that abbreviation is very necessary xD

[@androsp9105]

The last run is really cool. It would be amazing if someone could make a human viable route with Tauros.

[@andreee_obn6261]

I don't think that this could happen. Tauros has an appearing-rate of only 4% and Tauros has a catch rate of only 45, which is pretty low as well. This RNG-Manipulation to let Tauros appear and catch him with the first Safari Ball is very hard without TAS and failing it would pretty sure mean the run would be over immediately. In addition to that, you cannot use Horn Drill in a non-TSA run because of it's low accuracy, but it is pretty much required for Tauros in Koga's Gym and in the final fights because of Tauros' low level.

[@androsp9105]

@@andreee_obn6261 entrpntr managed to find a manip for a Lvl 4 Nidoran in Blue (1%) with FFEF DVs and can be yolo balled. It would be hard with Tauros' worse catch rate but I think it can be done. The problem I think runners would have would be clearing the text boxes. Idk what the frame buffer is for the safari zone battle text boxes. X accuracy can fix Horn Drill's accuracy, but it might make money routing difficult.

[@dragonslayerz2220]

@@androsp9105 That's at the very beginning of the run, though. That means much less time to mess up the manip.

[@rusty6899]

@@andreee_obn6261catching it is a non starter but Horn Drill is actually used extensively in the non-TAS runs using x-accuracy as a set up.

[@samelwell9463]

I really thought the Clefable meme was going to turn into metronome manip

[@diribigal]

Thanks for reminding me to ring the bell to increase my chances of seeing your great videos.

[@Buddy.Temple]

This is i guess the most impressive speedrun out there, crazy to have it so manipulated

[@StepBaum]

Greatly explained and easy to understand. nice visuals too!

[@bahamut256]

Tauros as a meme pokemon. *Nervous gen 1 competitive laughter.*

[@NateIsCorrupt]

I love this game! So much knowledge to learn about it.

[@menotyou135]

So hype to watch gold/silver!

[@limitbreak2966]

3:30 NOOO the bus stop frame rule analogy againnn jk lul it’s such a good analogy, it’s just funny how everyone uses it since it’s so good lul

[@93Russki]

I was using that pokedoll thing to the ghost back when I was a kid 20 years ago.

[@mxrcx]

Already sub to check out the GS TAS run explain, great video, great explanation

[@nhoj30]

When I was 8 and first got Red Version for X-Mas, I didn't know how the PC system worked so I just wound up keeping the first 6 Pokemon I caught. So I wasn't surprised when you said how strong Clefairy/Clefable can be 😂

[@Lookink54]

Very interesting! I always liked TAS's.

[@AnimeFanX11]

G/S/C TAS next please! Great vid.

[@imsoready1114]

Yes! I thought it was so interesting that Raticate is, at least right now, the fastest mon to use in GSC, and Id love to know how it got to that point haha

[@E4tHam]

Great explanations!

[@Purriah]

Nice a TAS speed run progression :o

[@oyy1332]

This deserves so many more views , it’s an amazing video

[@RetroPokemonDepot]

Super cool video!

[@JohnMazz]

Thanks, great video! So many major changes to the route seems to suggest that there's still big optimizations still possible. 🤔

[@briehart-nutter4357]

okay so I'm new here, and I gotta say, this intro is FIRE.

[@Abyssoft]

This is the first video I ever used the intro in, so you joined at the right time!

[@doublejazz]

I would love to see a video on gold/silver TAS or even RTA

[@watsonwrote]

I know the Japanese versions are a completely different category, but I know many examples of speedruns that use the fasted language for their speedruns. I'm curious how fast the best TAS of the Japanese version of Red is in comparison

[@crocodiledowny2191]

Keep up the good work 👍🏼

[@Bigboss-fr2kg]

This is some seriously intelligent content, some of these TAS speed runs are incredible

[@DBR9009]

Just going to say you have an awesome intro and logo

[@ekim613]

putting the TAS in TAuroS

[@CrocaDucks]

Nice video!

[@zigaudrey]

I finally understand why Speedrun show the count of frame! Every detail should be taken account!

[@julienbaldi8446]

Awesome video

[@yommmrr]

Sick vid my brother

[@alkali99]

great vid!

[@UndetectedUli]

Amazing work! Is there a testing with which language takes the least letters to be displayed to save some time? :D

[@smergthedargon8974]

10:06 SPEEED stat TRIPLE THE FAST

[@Kurumisama]

35:30 that plug was clever, sub :)

[@ennedp6925]

Super cool video, i just have a concern: why do percentages in 5:34 add up to 105%?

[@Abyssoft]

Good catch, I likely made a mistake when creating the graphic from the catch rate chart.

[@Just.A.T-Rex]

The poke doll was not an oversight. It’s even mentioned in the test players leaked debug logs and the developers state it works as intended meaning it was expected and coded to operate correctly. I suspect it’s just a clever treat.

[@aurifomo6385]

This is false. The poke doll escape was in fact an oversight reported by beta testers. The developers knew about that, but since it was a minor, not game-breaking out, they decided to leave it out for the time and patch it later, but they soon ran out of time for release date and never fixed it.

[@TomJacobW]

Swag boulder RNG manips is the most chad speedrunner thing I have ever heard.

[@FHBStudio]

Nidoran is an alien species canonically., so that might explain its diverse moveset.

[@MaestroColucci]

Slept faaaaast in this one. Loving it ❤

[@Xiaolruc]

12:50 "Luckily for us, in Gen 1, crits ignore stat changes." Unfortunately, it works both ways in Gen 1: crits ignore virtually ALL stat changes, including your own.

[@pendragon5573]

You never really hear about TAS speedrun history...

[@pluspiping]

RIP my beloved Clefable. At least you had your time in the spotlight.

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice video.

[@nickm3210]

thanks!

[@bes03c]

Great vid

[@AkerreBeHere]

Well I can't say I was expecting the framerule express to have a bus line in Pokemon...

[@Hyparbeem526]

"Here's a famous analogy using a bus" Ah, this fucking bus rears its head again

[@alexortiz9777]

When I saw clefairy I was hoping for metronome manip 😂

[@only1gameguru]

Glitchless is impossible in Pokemon RGBY due to an audio glitch at start

[@mussolini2525]

And the badge boost glitch plus the 30 million other glitches in the game lol

[@firebyrd7933]

Well TAS is probably the only run that doesn't use the badge boost glitch. Would have to watch the whole footage but at least I didn't see them purposefully get hit by a move that would activate it.

[@dustin202]

Critical hits are meant to ignore defence boosts, the glitch is that it ignores their defence drops

[@windlybandibunbrother4670]

Usually I prefer watching tases but I think I’m this situation I am objectively correct in saying Pokémon tases are more interesting

[@johndixon1725]

Nice breakdown that was interesting

[@bigmuthafooka]

Is this why there was rumors that if you press up and A when a poke ball comes out it will always catch the Pokémon? Bc it effected the RNG? Also what if the Pokedoll is a Cubone and it makes the ghost mom happy and that’s why the fight ends

[@AsgarnianAle]

Ah, good ol' gen 1 OP tauros.

[@BWBDCan]

I always got the ice beam on the roof of the department store to beat Erica. Misty and surge mega punch then out. Everything else wasnt to much of a issue with squirtle as the starter.

[@codeyvo]

People shit on TAS because it's been sometimes used as a method to cheat, but TAS'ing is a legitimate skill and it should be celebrated, especially when strategies found using TAS end up in use in speedruns.

[@b.clarenc9517]

2 questions: 1) 8:01 "Pokémon that share a type with Nidoking, which means Thrash won't kill some of them". What do you mean? How are type sharing and Thrash effectiveness linked? 2) Does the RNG advance the same amount when pressing a button or another? Or does it depend on the button pressed? If it does, do you have a table suming it up? BTW 5:20 the % add up to 105%, I think Rattata lvl.3 is only 15%.

[@Mister_Clean]

Red/Blue might have the most RNG dependent mechanics in any game in history. The chance for this to all come together in a regular run is so astronomically low, I doubt the ratio would fit on a computer screen. Great video

[@Abyssoft]

There's a single fight that had 1/4 trillion odds, it would make for an interesting video to take the most rng dependent sections and calculate the odds, the triple gen 1 miss explosion section would be a fun one

[@Mister_Clean]

@@Abyssoft Calculating it would be insanely difficult, but it would be awesome to actually put a number on these runs

[@chrisnunez9033]

How long did it take to figure out that last strat ? Because that is the game changer

[@BagOfMagicFood]

You could also get red bars in this generation by playing on Super Game Boy!

[@helentorchia620]

I bet someone is gonna make the button presses on the left side of the Tas into a chart on a rhythm game